Re: CDR's & MP3 for GS???

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>    Even if you could support writing, don't you think a 650 MB
>>permanent storage device is a bit overkill for the IIgs? With a
>>CD-R your expected to continually create discs packed with 650
>>megabytes of data. PC and Mac users have no trouble filling this
>>space because size of audio/video data (QT, AVI, MP3), not too
>>mention the sheer size of software archives that are often many
>>hundred megabytes large. In comparison, I can practically fit
>>the *entire* Caltech Apple II FTP archive onto a single CD-ROM.
>
>Haven't you seen all the interesting HyperCard and
>HyperStudio stacks that have been produced?  Haven't
>you seen the rather large animations and sounds that
>can be produced.  Haven't you ever wondered why there
>are not more CD-ROM titles THAT ACTUALLY TAKES
>ADVANTAGE OF THE IIGS' CAPABILITIES?

    I think the reason for the lack of CD-ROM titles for the IIgs
has to do with 1) Very few IIgs owners have a CD-ROM drive hooked
up to their systems and 2) The Apple IIgs software market died
long before compact discs and drives became affordable.

    Now we're stuck in a kind of catch-22, because despite CD-ROM
drives now being affordable, users have little incentive to buy
them because of the lack of CD titles. On the flip side, authors
who still publish software (which is to a very, very, small market)
aren't interested in producing programs that *require* CD's as it
means reducing your market to a tiny handful of users. As it stands
now, if you sell IIgs software you don't want _anything_ that could
potentially cut into your profits, because then your just breaking
even or even losing money.

    We've seen a couple of data archive-only CD's because it costs
little or nothing to produce (except mostly the time involved in
organizing and sorting data). Today you can even purchase your
own blank CD's, labels and a burner, and do your own in-house
publishing. Blank discs are only about $1/ea. I don't think
anyone is pressing Apple II CD's anymore.

>Take HyperCard and HyperStudio stacks...the biggest
>ones I've seen are 3MB archives (probably unpacks
>to 5MB).  These things just START to tap into the potential
>of the IIGS.  If I had a CD-ROM burner that can easily
>directly record on the IIGS, I can learn one or both
>of these authoring systems and make a large adventure
>game, complete with graphics, video sequences, and
>tons of digitized sounds and still graphics.  Imagine
>if each stack were a segment of an adventure game
>and takes 1MB of storage.  You can have 650 scenes
>in the game!  All the stacks can link to each other to
>provide a coherent gaming environment.  And there
>would be no need for scripters to skimp on disk space.

    I have to admit it would be _very_ neat to take advantage
of all the storage space on a CD for a IIgs game, or a stack.
You could have plently of long digitized music scores and
video captures (DreamVision, Mini-Movies and even Paintworks
animations are proof you can do moving video) and still have
lots of room left over for the main program.

    Though this is just an arguement for having a CD-ROM drive,
not a burner. If someone published a game that required a CD
drive, they could create all the data and then burn it onto a
master CD using their PC or Mac (then make copies from there).
Digisoft didn't burn their Golden Orchard CD (which had both
ProDOS and HFS partitions) using the IIgs for example.

    In any case, this is all fantasy since it doesn't seem
likely the GS would be fast enough to support a CD-R burner.
Also, I don't see any current interest in writing CD-ROM
games and programs, though that isn't to say someone can't.
CD-ROM software falls into the same catagory as the Second
Sight--lots of potential is *there*, but no one is jumping
at it and it remains relatively untapped.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca